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Articles Tagged ‘coffee’

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Finca Selva Negra

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

The next day I hop on a bus headed further up the mountains towards jinotega for a day trip to La Selva Negra, spanish for The Black Forest.  The bus lets me off about ½ way, next to a rusting military tank and a sign for La Selva Negra.  I snap a few photos of some boys playing on the tank and head down the road pointing to the Finca.  Finca is “farm” in Spanish, btw, and La Selva Negra is an organic, shade-grown coffee farm started in the 1880 by german immigrants who were invited by the Nicaraguan government to grow coffee and help get a coffee industry started.

Their techniques are extremely eco-friendly but even more impressive is the vast acreage (over ½ of the finca) that is covered with virgin rainforest.  They have wonderfull trails that criss-cross it and one can stay there in chalets for a bit more money than I wanted to spend given my recent splurges, or pay just $1.25 to have access to the finca and trails.  Both matagalpa and jinotega are short bus rides away and have decent accommodations.

I must admit that I was uncharacteristically careless when noting the trails I wanted to take.  I knew there were no “looped” trails and that one needed to meet up with other trails to make it back.  After poking around the finca for a bit I started my hike around 10:30 and for the next few hours soaked up the lovely green forest and listened to the howler monkeys. I needed a recharge of green and I had forgotten that once again.  This was green like I hadn’t seen since costa rica.  Then I started to wonder if I was going the right way.  Was the trail I was on meeting up with the right trail?  There were not printed maps, only a picture on the wall.  Often I’ll snap a photo with my point-and-shoot in these situations so I can zoom in and refer to it later, but I was not that smart this time.

I knew I could back-track and find my way, but that would put me out there later than I wanted considering how early the sun goes down in these valleys.  So I continued on, trusting my sense of direction and promising to be more careful in the future. Indeed I made it back, feeling invigorated and fortunate.  While waiting at the road for the bus I had a nice chat with Alex, a young writer for Rough Guide and unbeknownst to him he gave me my first English conversation in days.  A little “laniape” :).

Posted in central america, Nicaragua, Travel | No Comments »

Cooling off in Matagalpa

Monday, February 11th, 2008

I said goodbye to my air-conditioned room in Leon and took off for a place with some altitude and what I’d hope would be nature’s own air-conditioning.   I just get so lazy when it’s hot.  So I caught a chicken bus to matagalpa in nicaragua’s central mountains.  Chicken buses are decommissioned US school buses used throughout central America for transportation.  They are often painted and decorated – at least one of these decorations being an incarnation of jesus or the virgin mary.

It’s a long, dusty ride across Nicaragua.  I’d swear I was in deep west texas if it weren’t for the occasional smoking volcano.  They define the landscape in most of Nicaragua, often rising solo on the horizon and, yes, this was the first time i’d seen one smoking.  After a bus change in san isidro we started to climb and the temperature started to drop.  Yay!  This is near the heart of nicaragua’s coffee region and one after the other there were large lots covered with a patchwork of drying coffee beans.  Tons of them!  I still don’t understand why it’s so hard to get even a moderately good cup of coffee in central america, when so many countries grow amazing coffee.  Nescafe it is!  I know it’s all exported but with coffee prices depressed you’s think they’d try to sell some at home.

When I arrive in matagalpa and head towards the town square (the smaller one – ruben Dario) it’s clear there is a major fiesta getting underway.  Surrounding the square are tons of booths – most decorated with the ubiquitous tona and Victoria banners.  the advertised 15 cordobas for a beer is about as good as I’ve seen it (about 75 cents).  I find a clean room with bath for $12.5 just off the square at Hotel Alvarado which is above the family-owned pharmacy.

I usually try to get to town before 2 or 3 so I can do a quick walk around my first day and get my bearings. I purposefully avoid all-day bus journeys and try to make smaller hops.  It didn’t take long to cover the major parts of matagalpa.  It’s clean town and seems to be a little more prosperous than many others, probably due to the coffee, tobacco and productive veggie farming around the area.

The week long festival is an event celebrating the anniversary of matagalpa achieving “city” status and it soon becomes clear they have lots of city pride.  Heartfelt tributes are delivered on the stage in the square and many different colorful dance troops perform traditional dances.  In the evenings the tona/Victoria covered booths light up the fritangas out front, grills that serve delicious comidas tipicas, grilled meats, gallo pinto (surprise!), plantains, but also little patties of meat or veggies that help mix things up a bit.

This was really a great place to people watch and I find myself wishing more and more that my Spanish was better.  Here in the highlands, with no gringos to chat up occasionally, the poor state of my Spanish is more obvious.   in some places I have an incredibly hard time understanding even the simplest of sentences and this applies even more here in the highlands.  Maybe it’s like someone who speaks only a little English and goes to deep east texas.  They’d have a harder time, right?

Posted in central america, Nicaragua, Travel | No Comments »